The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same?

After the dramatic and
potentially catastrophic events of the Golden Calf and the breaking of the
Tablets, God’s wrath and Moshe’s prayer, God’s revelation of God’s Glory to
Moshe, the re-giving of the Tablets, and the rays of light emanating from
Moshe’s face, our parasha returns to the disrupted narrative stream: the
commanding and the building of the Mishkan. While the earlier parshiyot
of Terumah and TiZaveh related God’s command in donating for and building
the Mishkan, Parashat VaYakhel
and next week’s parasha, Pikudei, tell of the enactment of
these commands, the actual donating and building that took place. This parasha, then, puts us back on the
track of the dominant narrative that was so rudely interrupted.

It is remarkable that
there seems to be no echo in what follows of those dramatic events that
occurred between the command and its enactment. It is as if the events of Parashat Ki Tisa did not
occur. If one were to jump from chapter 31, verse 18, (“And God gave to
Moshe when God finished speaking to him on Mount Sinai, two tablets of stone,
tablets written with the finger of God.”) to the first verse of this week’s parasha (Shemot, 31:5: “And Moshe
gathered the entire Congregation of the People of Israel and said to them,
these are the things which God has commanded to do…”), there would be no hint
that something had happened between the two. How is this
possible? How could these tragic events not leave a mark?

One way to approach
this question is to reconsider the order of events. Rashi, in his comment
at the end of the verses commanding the building of the Mishkan (Shemot, 31:18)
and immediately before the Torah begins the narrative of the Golden Calf, states:

There is no chronological order in Scripture. The event of the Golden
Calf occurred many days before the commandment of the building of the Mishkan,
for the Tablets were broken on the 17th of Tamuz, and on Yom Kippur, God made
peace with the Children of Israel, and on the following day they began to
donate to the Mishkan, which was then erected on the first of Nissan.

That is, the
commandments relating to the Mishkan—the entirety of parshiyot Terumah and TiZaveh—occurred immediately before their implementation, after
the events of the Golden Calf. If this is the case, it is no wonder that there
is no hint to these events! The implementation followed the commandment without
a break.

While Rashi’s approach
solves the question we raised, other issues remain problematic. First and
foremost, it is hard to understand why the Torah would tell the story this way?
Why not tell it more simply, in the correct chronological sequence? Moreover,
if Rashi is right about the order, then it is even harder to understand what
the two parshiyot of VaYakhel
and Pikudei are doing. Why are
they in the Torah at all? They are quite long and, to be honest, quite
repetitive of Terumah and TiZaveh. The 231 verses of VaYakhel and Pikudei could have all been said in one verse, as the Torah
often does in such cases, with, “And the Children of Israel did all that God
had commanded Moshe.” What, according to Rashi, is the point of such an extensive
and repetitive cataloging of how they did what God had commanded?

In contrast to Rashi’s
assertion that the Torah does not stick to chronological order, Ramban insists
that, wherever possible, we should assume that the narrative is so ordered.
Thus he states in his commentary to Shemot, 25:2, that the Mishkan was
commanded immediately after the Giving of the Torah. According to Ramban, then,
Moshe was commanded regarding the Mishkan before the sin of the Golden Calf,
but he only communicated it to the Children of Israel in this week’s parasha.
They then saw it through by giving their donations and building the Mishkan.
This returns us to our earlier questions: Why all these verses? And why is
there no hint of all the events surrounding the Golden Calf?

I believe that these
two questions answer each other. Our parashaprovides an answer to the question of how a
relationship can continue after it has suffered a serious rupture. Take, for
example, a husband who has committed adultery. When his wife finds out, she is
justifiably enraged and seriously considers divorcing him. She even briefly moves
out of the house, and they live apart for a while. Then, after a serious
process of soul-searching, regret, and contrition, the husband is able to fully
own his betrayal, to seriously commit to changing his ways, and he implores his
wife to take him back. She is initially very reluctant, not only because she
has been betrayed, but because she knows that this act was not out of character
for the husband. Nevertheless, she relents, because in the end, she loves him,
and she believes that he is seriously committed to being a different person.
They have a small, private ceremony to reaffirm their vows, and they resume
their married life together.

Now comes the
question: do they go on as if nothing has happened, or do they continuously
live with the past? Neither solution is ideal. To continue as if nothing has
changed is possibly to allow the same betrayal to occur again, but to live with
the betrayal front and center is to destroy any hope of rebuilding the
relationship. The proper solution would seem to be finding a way to enact
certain safeguards, certain small changes in behavior that would serve to
protect against backsliding but that would not fill the relationship with guilt
and recrimination. While it would be a disaster for the relationship if the wife
constantly held the past over her husband, it would be understandable for her
to protect herself more initially, to not be as fully giving emotionally until
she felt confident in the relationship once again.

This seems to be
exactly what has occurred between God and the Children of Israel. The
relationship of God and Israel is a covenantal one, based on fidelity and
trust. When the Children of Israel worshiped the Golden Calf, either as a
god or as an idol meant to represent God, they betrayed God and committed a
form of adultery. God declares that they have shown their true character, and
it is impossible to go on living with them: “You are a stiff-necked
people. If I will dwell in your midst for one second, I will destroy
you.” Moshe prays to God, and God chooses to resume the relationship
indirectly, by sending an angel to lead them.

This compromise,
however, is not enough for Moshe, and after enormous effort and an act of
contrition on the part of the Children of Israel, Moshe persuades God to resume
the relationship, and God declares: “My Presence will go and I will give you
rest” (Shemot, 33:14). This, however, is a little different than what
God originally said: “You shall build for Me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell in
their midst” (Shemot, 25:8). God had earlier declared the God would be in
their midst, but here, God is promising to have God’s Presence go with them. Is
this the same thing? It seems not, as Moshe is not satisfied and asks for
God Godself to be with them: “But how will it be known, then, that I have found
favor in Your sight—I and your People—is it not by Your going with us?”
(Shemot, 33:16). That is, we want You Yourself, not Your angel, and not even
Your Presence, but You. God does not directly respond to this request, and
we are left wondering if God is as fully committed to the relationship as
before.

This ambiguity
notwithstanding, God commits to resume the relationship, and God and Israel
recommit to one another with a reaffirmation of the covenant, the repetition of
some of the mitzvot in Mishpatim, and
the re-giving of the Tablets. This is a quiet ceremony, with no
fanfare. Things are still a little broken, and both parties reenter the
relationship with a more realistic, less idealistic or romantic view of the
future. And now they are ready to move forward. They put themselves back to the
task of building the home that will house their life together, the Mishkan
which will house God’s presence and allow for their connection, their
intimacy. The Torah then tells us in painstaking detail of every single
task that they did to donate to the Mishkan and to build it. The message seems
inescapable: both sides are trying to proceed as if nothing has happened. It is
all the same as before, they tell themselves, and one cannot detect a hint of
the previous events.

Well, maybe a hint.
For it is not what is said in this week’s parasha, but what is not said. Moshe commands that the people
donate to the building of the Mishkan just as God had commanded at the
beginning of Parashat Terumah,
but there is one notable difference. That original command ended with the
climactic verse, “And they shall build for Me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell in
their midst.” Such a verse is completely absent here. Without throwing it
in their face, God is making it known that the relationship is more tentative
than before. God is not as ready to fully give of Godself. God has
promised that God’s Presence will go with them, but God has not promised that
God Godself will dwell with them. They will build the Mishkan, but the
people cannot assume that God is fully in their midst just because they have
built it. God’s Glory—presumably equivalent to God’s Presence—will descend
and fill the Mishkan (Shemot, 40:34), but something, it seems, even some small,
subtle thing, is held back. To rebuild the relationship takes time, and
while the sin of the Calf is not being held over their heads, the people must
work to restore the trust and to rebuild the relationship.

And a safeguard is put
in, for in our parasha the
commandment of Shabbat precedes the commanding of the Mishkan. The reverse was
true when God originally commanded it (see Shemot 31:12-17). The juxtaposition
of Shabbat and Mishkan says: “The Mishkan is the most intense connecting to
God, but don’t forget the Shabbat, the foundation of the relationship. Shabbat
cannot be overridden for the sake of the building of the Mishkan.” In a way,
then, the building of the Mishkan represents the passion for connection, a
passion that could, by its intensity, overstep proper bounds (ha’ahavah
mikalkelet et ha’shura, love destroys boundaries). Shabbat, on the other
hand, represents ongoing commitment, boundaries, and rules—the reliable warmth
of the relationship, not its consuming fire. The first time around, the
focus was the passion that brought God and the People together. They
needed to be reminded of the rules and boundaries, but that came at the end;
the relationship was defined by its passion. However, after the passion got out
of hand and so consumed the people that they turned to the Calf when God or
Moshe were not present, things had to change. This time, the relationship had
to focus first and foremost on the rules, the boundaries, the establishment of
trust, and the warmth of the home. The passion could come, and it would
come, but it could not dominate.

The second time
around, both God and the People were less idealistic, less romantic. After an
agonizing separation, they had chosen to resume their relationship. It
would resume somewhat tentatively and with an emphasis on its foundation, the
core connection of God and the People. One could say that the relationship
was less intense as a result, but one could also say that, after having
survived tragedy and moved forward, it was that much stronger. It was a
relationship based on true depth and commitment. It was a relationship that
would outlast the test of time.